Toy car playsets have long served as a child's amusement; one through which the child may simulate real life situations through play and thereby learn. Toy car playsets are known in which the toy cars in the set may be linked together to simulate automobile towing. That simulation was accomplished with magnetism; permanent magnets incorporated within the structure of the toy cars that produced an attractive magnetic force between the two. With a magnet mounted in the rear of the towing vehicle being oppositely poled to the pole of another magnet mounted in the front of the towed vehicle, the magnetic attraction between the respective North and South poles of the two magnets forms a magnetic coupling. By pulling on the first or towing vehicle, the towed vehicle maintains physical contact with the towing vehicle and, with the magnetic attractive force produced by the magnets being sufficient to overcome the starting and rolling friction of the towed vehicle, the towed vehicle is pulled right along as if by magic to the child's delight.
Magnetic force has been used as well to simulate an engine in toy cars. With a wheeled car carrying a magnet, a second magnet is moved underneath the car to pull the car along. The two magnets are separated by a magnetically pervious barrier, such as a plastic table top preventing the pulling magnet from coming into contact with the pulled magnet while allowing the invisible magnetic fields to couple. Seemingly the vehicle appears to move on its own power atop a wood table or other magnetically pervious surface as the magnet under the table or surface is moved beneath the car. The child not only played a real life experience, but learned of the attractive force of magnetism as well.
Repelling magnetic forces have also found application in toys as an addition to a toy car structure. That force also provides a form of propulsion and guidance for the toy car such as is found in the patent literature. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,965,613 to Saunders a stick or wand carries a permanent magnet at one end that is positioned by the player near a car containing a relatively small bar magnet located at the cars rear end. The car mounted magnet is oriented at an angle to the chassis bottom and roadway surface, suitably 45 degrees. The magnetic field lines in the Saunders toy car structure may be said to run or extend from the front of the bar magnet to the back, with the magnetic field lines running skew to both the vertical and horizontal axes of the car. The wand carried magnet is poled, either north or south, in the same direction as the adjacent end of the magnet in the rear of the toy car; its north pole located at the tip or end of the bar and its south pole located at the other end. When the wand carried magnet is moved next to the car, the repelling force created by the stick carried magnet, forces the car to roll forward. A like magnet is similarly oriented at the front end of the car disclosed in Saunders to allow the same operation described from the opposite end of the toy car.
Magnetic repulsion has also been used in the toy car educational device described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,991 to Orfei, in which U shaped magnets, having the North and South poles located at the tips of the U shape, are mounted in adjacent ends of two cars with the poles of the magnets oriented in the same direction to create a repelling force. A more amusing form of this repelling magnetic effect is presented in the patent to Quinby U.S. No. 2,540,216 that discloses a novelty item in which a railroad engine, propelled in a conventional manner on a railroad track, carries a magnet at the front. The engine runs behind a track car carrying two toy figures, representing workmen, and this track car carries a magnet oppositely poled to that in the engine. The repelling force of the magnet allows the track car to roll along on the track in front of the moving engine, always keeping ahead, simulating a highly motivated effort by the toy figures to avoid being run over by the engine.
Both repelling and attractive magnetic effects have also been combined in a single toy car playset. U.S. Pat. No. 3,303,606 granted to Mann describes toy cars containing small permanent magnets that are rotatably mounted and are of a button or disk shaped geometry, small in size with respect to the size of the toy vehicle. Those magnets contain a central axial opening or passage by means of which the magnets are mounted to the toy cars, with a south pole to one side of the axis of rotation and the north pole at the other side of that axis. Two such magnets are rotatably mounted to each toy car, one at the front and the other at the rear of the vehicle. And the side of the magnets protrude slightly beyond the end of the cars' undercarriage or housing. When a magnet of one vehicle is rotated to a position in which the exposed magnetic pole is the same as the pole of the magnet in an oncoming car the cars will repel. When the disk shaped magnet is rotated 180 degrees about its axis with the other magnet pole facing that in the second car, the cars attract and magnetically couple. Considering the one car to be a tow truck, the tow truck may either push or pull the car for added simulation, depending angular orientation for the magnet selected by the child.
The present invention incorporates magnetism to simulate a collision avoidance effect. The repelling effect of oppositely poled magnets is used in toy cars so as to avoid collisions therebetween. Although the structure described in the Saunders patent is for a players use in propelling and guiding the vehicle, one might imagine if two such toy cars were placed together for play by two different children playing the same game with their respective play sets, and one car approached the other from the front or back, the two cars would likely repel one another and avoid a collision.
In the Saunders structure one such magnet is incorporated at the front of the toy car and a second is incorporated at the cars' rear. Each of the magnets shown is relatively short with respect to the length of the car. Accordingly as one measures the lines of magnetic force at different positions about the periphery of one of the cars, the vehicle the direction of the magnetic field lines changes. Should one car approach another in the playset directly from the front or back, the magnetic fields thus create a repelling force. However, if the one car approached from the other side, so that the north pole of the one vehicle approached the south pole of the other, the two cars would attract and ultimately make contact. And where there was no significant magnetic field along the sides the two vehicles would also make contact. It is recognized that the described characteristics are somewhat speculative since they are unrelated to the function of the Saunders invention in as much as Saunders employs only a single vehicle in the described play set and, consequently, other potential uses or mis-uses of that structure are not explained.
And with either position of the magnet in the previously described structure presented in the Mann patent, it is apparent that when one car is approached from the side, the two cars may attract or in some instances repel depending upon the position along the side from which the approach is made. The two vehicles cannot repel one another in all directions of approach and thus cannot properly simulate an anti-collision device. By changing the magnet and the configuration of the magnetism, in the simple manner hereinafter taught, in cars such as those presented in the Saunders and Mann patents, a true anti-collision system may be formed. To simulate cars with anti-collision features, the prevention mechanism should protect irrespective of the direction of approach. None of the car structures presented in the foregoing patents appear to provide a repelling force active between cars active in any direction of approach along the roadway surface, over a full 360 degrees about the car.
Fantasy and simulation are enhanced with color and speed. Brightly colored die cast metal cars are typical of existing toy cars that have enjoyed a high percentage of the toy car market for many years. Those cars were cast of iron, which is a magnetic material, or of zinc or zinc alloys, which are non-magnetic materials. A prime reason to their commercial success is the low friction easy rolling wheel axle arrangement, which allows the car to move fast and long; a secondary reason is the cars attractiveness and solid feel. An aspect of the present invention is the incorporation of such easy rolling wheels in a car of essentially plastic and magnet material.
Plastic toy cars of many varieties have been known heretofore. More specifically plastic cars incorporating the high speed low friction wheels were heretofore known, such as was introduced years ago under the "Johnny Lightning" brand name by the Topper Company as a lower cost substitute for die cast metal. However, those plastic cars did not perform well: the weight of the cars was less than that of a comparable size die cast metal car. Consequently when pushed or rolled down a slope, the cars momentum was lower, making a less attractive alternative for the children. To achieve the greater momentums available from the die cast toy cars they were to replace, additional weights had to be added to the plastic structure, destroying the manufacturing cost advantages. Those plastic cars, consequently, were short lived and disappeared from the market years ago in the early '70's.
The present invention takes advantage of the low friction wheels to enhance the effects of repelling magnetic force. None of the magnetically operated toy cars described in the patent literature, earlier described, appear to employ the easy rolling wheel axle arrangements of the die cast metal cars or to offer the dramatic results obtainable from such low friction wheel structures.
An object of the invention, therefore, is to provide a toy car playset that simulates standard automobiles equipped with anti-collision devices.
An additional object of the invention is to prevent collisions between toy cars as one is propelled toward another, irrespective of the direction of approach.
A further object is to provide a toy car playset in which individual vehicles may repel one another on approach over any of 360 degrees of approach.
And an ancillary object of the invention is to provide a low cost easily manufactured easy rolling toy car containing magnets and a plastic body that has both the look and feel of a toy die cast metal car of the kind presently being marketed.